Health Vs. Wellness…What is the Difference?

Health vs. wellness, the answer is in the past and present and creating a better future.
I heard a brilliant expression from a colleague this week – a number of years ago a doctor told her she was healthy, not well. What is the difference?
Healthy: not diseased…… Wellness brings out the deeper meaning of health, which can be glossed over in health programs. By differentiating between health vs. wellness, we expose the many underlying health saboteurs, which unknowingly compromise our health.

Think of wellness as the opportunity for health engagement. The word “health” conjures up visions of restrictive, long lists of ” I shouldn’t”, no fun to many people. Wellness can provide the physiological, emotional and social engagement and camaraderie for sustainability and adherence to a health and wellness program…and ROI.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in it’s 1948 constitution as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Sounds Utopic.
In pursuit of the broader WHO goals for health evolved our healthcare system. The healthcare system is financially depleted, and has become a “sick care” system. We diagnose, try to fix illness. Whether we get caught up in blaming the politicians for our healthcare crisis, we cannot ignore the erosion is largely due to unnecessary illness. Going forward, to achieve the intent of healthcare, we need to be inclusive of a thoroughly articulated view, role and definition of wellness.

Healthcare and medical diagnostics are vital, however, we need to all become our own advocates – and take charge of constantly seeking further wellness. Looking at out health is more of a current status. And whereas we know that certain diagnoses such as metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, carcinoma in situ, are definite calls to more proactive action -the goal of wellness is to prevent the pre-diseased state.
What is wellness? Wellness is the #1 opportunity we have in our lives. We have hundreds of options within our control to prevent even a pre-diseased state.
Take a look at these relationships:

They are all often used interchangeably. Comparing does not necessitate an adversarial tone, rather, there are nuances that suggest a symbiotic relationship. They are subsets within each other, necessary partners promoting each other.

Medical diagnostics catch disease or impending disease. Genomic testing is our only diagnostic to provide the ultimate wellness, by mapping our DNA. Going to our healthcare providers, being told everything looks good, nothing is wrong – is fantastic news not to be taken for granted.We all know, we sill might not feel well. We might:

have a haze about us…something is just not right

feeling stressed and drained

erratic appetite

Feeling a lack of control in ourselves

Not being as focused, energized and productive as we used to be

Don’t feel rested and restored

Moodiness

Or, we could just be in robomode- so busy in our day to day routines, surviving each day and task as it comes, we are unaware that we are not optimized

This general malaise in health is what I call health presenteeism. We know work presenteeism is being at work in body – but not being fully there in mind – not fully functioning and is usually attributed to health issues.

Optimizing our digestive health. We all know the cliche we are what we eat. What his really implies is we are what we eat, digest and absorb. Our digestive tract serves many complex functions of our health. Hippocrates said “all disease begins in the gut”. Our gut performs an infinite number of daily tasks including digestion, absorption, influencing our mood with the production of serotonin, is the first step of our immune system……Our digestive tract takes thousands of attacks daily from poor food choices, digestive strain, medications, ingestion of toxins, viruses and bacteria, stress…and a central focus of our wellness efforts must be on optimizing our digestive tract.

Eliminating physiological stressors in our lives.

Oxidative stress and inflammation: Proven repeatedly to be at the root of all of our chronic illnesses.

Optimizing our Immune system

Understanding what it takes to create a healthy inner ecosystem.

The science of happy. The #1 predictor of productivity is happiness. Happy is far more than accomplishing our goals. Happiness also must have wellness embedded into its roots. How does this impact our wellness programs? A 2016 study by Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) after surveying employees from 500 organizations in 70 countries found happy employees are more productive at work. The findings confirm the role emotions play in business, and that happiness is critical for productivity and talent retention and not a job perk or something that is just “nice to have.” The connection was clear: happy employees are high performing employees.

Enjoying and embracing wellness. None of us are looking for another miserable task in our lives. Wellness practices must be engaging, integrated into a person’s life, welcomed, and perceived as fun and of great value. If we are not feeling the rewards of our wellness efforts, and we feel these practices are another strain, they are erratic and short lived. Wellness should be freedom and liberation, not rigid, restrictive or inflexible.

Wellness is a state of mind. It is a desire to optimize our health, a partner in our raison d’être, a joie de vivre. Through wellness we put a jump in our steps and feel capable of compartmentalizing and managing the many challenges life inevitably serves.

When appreciating the symbiosis of health vs. wellness, it’s easier for us to appreciate why
our blood pressure and blood sugar are normal, our diagnostics and biometrics appear acceptable – but something is just not right. It must be stress is the usual conclusion – Yes – it is stress – but we need to look at stress at a much deeper level. True wellness is helping everyone to become their own health ambassador, helping them understand the many levels of wellness, far deeper than the superficialities. Even if we are eating right, exercising – there is great variance there, and maybe our overall wellness choices, when put together – are not nourishing us at the control centers of our body – our cells. Wellness comes from much deeper than our outer facade. Wellness comes from our cell-being.

Help control workforce oxidative stress: 7 patents, 24 peer reviewed studies on pubmed, accolades from American Heart Association, Mayo Clinic, National Institute on Aging….Washington State: “may well become the most extraordinary therapeutic and most extraordinary preventative breakthrough in the history of medicine.”

Cell-being creates our inner magic kingdom that is hostile to disease, and takes the cacophony of our daily lives and creates a symphonic inner ecosystem.

Personalized Health vs. wellness programs…..Yes…..We get VERY personal……right down to the DNA….

Corporate health programs…what a wonderful way to affordably make the world a happier, healthier place.

Employee Risk Analytics with Wearable Devices

Risk analytics with a wearable device…..who ever dreamed! Wearable devices have come a very long way from the $5 pedometer – but hey – they gave us a great start – a thirst to develop better technology to get active and monitor our health.

Employee risk analytics allows us to investigate and identify variables, here health risks, that jeopardize our employees’ health, therefore, compromising productivity, engagement……….With the help of the analytics, we can design & help employees implement focused, targeted, sustainable measures to reduce the risk, improve their health and the health of the company.

Physicians and insurance companies are using Predictive Analytics…..Predictive analytics (PA) uses technology and statistical methods to search through massive amounts of information, analyzing it to predict outcomes for individual patients. Predictions are made for individuals, not for groups. In our scenario, we want easily obtained, yet scientific accuracy to help our employees identify any potential health risks.

It is NEVER for us to diagnose – however, if we can provide accurate data to our health care professionals, it can go a very long way.

Biomarkers are the most objective, quantifiable medical signs modern laboratory science allows us to measure reproducibly.

Body temperature is an accepted biomarker for fever. Blood pressure is used to determine the risk of stroke, heart disease, and a neon light for the potential for the development of disease. Cholesterol, triglycerides are biomarkers and risk indicators for coronary and vascular disease, and C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker for inflammation, a precursor to all of our chronic illnesses.

The chronic illnesses I’ve included in this chart – as yes, they are health threats on their own, can also lead to other chronic illnesses. These biomarkers together provide important bioparameters to our health, and when monitored can provide vital data for our own predictive risk analytics. We can encourage dialogue with health care professionals, help our employees become their own health advocate, design programs around these bioparameters, and yes of course improve the health of our company.

Getting real data, is a preemptive attack against disease.

We can encourage our employees to gather that data in a fun (call it….in style) way – wearable technology is the sport out there now. We encourage people using the universal language of today – technology – to be more proactive about their health. And we can design our health coaching models around the results of this data, combined with an HRA

Now you have real risk data, and a real proactive, based in science, wellness solution. We are now encouraging our employees, with real time data, to seek help from their medical professionals, and are going to provide them the tools and education, motivation & inspiration needed to adopt better lifestyle choices and habits.

The Human Cloud at Work Study, amongst many other studies shows us the value of wearable technology in the workplace. Wearing wearable technology increases productivity, and plays a major role in the business environment. The wearable technology revolution is here to stay for a number of years.

According to eMarketer, nearly 40 million U.S. adults over 18 used wearable technology in 2015 — a jump of 57.7 percent over 2014. The usage of wearables is projected to hit 81.7 million adults by 2018.

ABI Research: 13 million wearable devices will be integrated into corporate wellness plans over the next five years. Wearables are perceived to offer encouragement to work toward better health, without appearing to be a requirement, and apparently, 44 percent of U.S. workers are already wearing them to work.

PwC study: 49% of respondents believe that the use of wearables in the workplace will help improve efficiency and increase productivity of employees. 67% of respondents expect that the company is willing to allocate some of its budget to purchase wearables that will support productivity.

Health Risk Analytics and Wearable Technology…Connecting the Dots:

Incentives increase success of a program

Health challenges in the workplace increase participation in the wellness program & camaraderie, promoting engagement and satisfaction

Employers are dedicated to providing organization and structure to their company’s day to day operations, and to creating a positive work environment for employees. We have to stop with rear view wellness solutions, especially as employee demographics evolve. With the right wearable technology we can provide for proactive health and chronic illness management, necessitated by the diversity of our workforce. Wearable technology as incentives combined with customized wellness programs offers an endless goldmine of opportunities for employee engagement, increased productivity, and enhanced safety.